Enhancing User Experience Through Micro-interactions

Micro Interactions helps us to seamlessly navigate through an app effortlessly. I will provide you with plenty of examples for you to understand thoroughly in this blog. Before that you should know what micro-interactions are. Micro interactions are tiny design elements that are simple like an animation in your social media posts. Through micro-interactions there will be a great improvement in usability, making the app or the website user-friendly, engaging digital environment, and satisfying digital experience. 

Here are a few examples of micro-interactions, you can relate to your day-to-day life:

1. Have you seen the sun icon beam stretch upwards when you increase the brightness of the phone? It is a micro-interaction.

2. Here is the best example from your day-to-day life -  When you like a post on Instagram your heart will fill up on your screen which is so satisfying.

3. When you fill up a form, you enter your email id instead of entering your phone number an error message will pop up. It is also a micro-interaction to improve the user experience.

4. When you take up a course for example in Udemy, there is a progress bar at the top that tracks your progression on the course. This will increase your productivity as well as your patience.

In short, Micro-interactions are tiny or almost invisible animations that respond to user's actions in a digital world and they are everywhere. 

Advantage of Micro interactions 

1. Enhancing usability of the product/ app/ website

2. Boost engagement

3. Makes the experience enjoyable

4. Satisfying experience

5. Strengthen brand identity

Implementing Micro interactions

There are mainly 4 steps in implementing a micro interaction.

1. User Research - the very first step is user research. In this stage we research the type of users who are using the product.

2. Collaboration between designers and the developers - The second stage the designers should collaborate with the developers in order to ensure easiness.

3. Prototyping - The third stage is prototyping. In this stage we build a model to visualise the interactions so that the designers could easily find the best solution and the possible errors to rectify it. 

4. Test - Here is the last step that is testing. After building the app/ website the designers should test it to ensure its usability and make sure it works  as it was intended. 

Principles of micro-interactions

1. Micro-interactions should be purposeful

2. It should solve the user's problem 

3. It should be simple and comfortable

4. Consistency is the key. The same action should trigger the same micro-interactions across the product to keep up the brand's identity.

5. It should be user-centred

6. The micro-interactions should meet the needs and expectations of the target users. 

7. It should be responsive 

Conclusion 

To conclude, Micro-interactions are essential in an app/ website to enhance the usability of the product/ app/ website, boost engagement, strengthen brand identity, and make the experience enjoyable and satisfying. These tiny animations impact apps or websites overall performance. It contributes to a more comfortable and seamless user experience that effortlessly guides users. It can transform simple interactions into a satisfying and pleasant experience for the users. 

If you want to know more on What does a UI/UX Designer do?  and  What is the UI/UX Design Process Here is the article.

If you would like to become a UI/UX designer, contact us at +91 8136866266 and details are available at UI/UX.